When the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles in Cuba nearly 60 years ago,
American officials refused to believe that at least one Soviet motivation
was the defense of Cuba. But declassified U.S. documents published in
the *Digital
National Security Archive* (DNSA) confirm a series of sometimes frenetic
covert operations ordered by the Kennedy White House and run by the CIA in
those years to overthrow the Castro regime that in hindsight make Moscow’s
(and Havana’s) concerns about defending the island much more credible.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2019-10-03/kennedy-cuba-operation-mongoose